Will VRS work?After trying it up with the staff of the state boards and corporations, specially those marked for disinvestment, with limited success, the Punjab Government on Tuesday approved a voluntary retirement scheme for its general employees.

Children of lesser godThe Centre’s proposal to set up a national commission for children is welcome as this was long overdue to help protect their legitimate rights. There should be no problem for the Centre to ensure the smooth passage of the legislation in Parliament as all the political parties are one in pleading for improving the conditions of children.

BJP in Maya
jaalUttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati seems to believe that a controversy a day keeps her opponents at bay. Like Julius Caesar, she has many enemies even within the ruling coalition who would not mind playing the role of Brutus. But the problem is that she knows that in the kind of politics that she plays, she would be dead if she did not protect her back.

Musharraf versus his parliamentA mess of the General’s own makingInder Malhotra
Who could have thought that Pakistan's third and present military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, would paint himself into such a tight corner as he has? And that too not because any external threat or pressure but of his own stratagem through which he had given a civilian façade of sorts to his dictatorship. But that is precisely what is happening next door.

MIDDLE

Cat-chatNiti Paul Mehta
“I opened the door of my room and then stood glued to the ground”, said a colleague the other day. “There on top of the wooden box covering the power meter on the opposite wall lay a big, soft, brown blob of fur. It moved and raised its head and stared gravely at me. It was a cat”.

Sanawar: a school at odds with itselfBaljit Malik
In the last ten years or so, The Lawrence School located in the village of
Sanawar, near Kasauli, has changed three Headmasters. The latest to go is Mr Andrew Gray, an import from Britain who managed to survive for only three years.

A school with strong traditions
Chitleen K. SethiMr Harish Dhillon, Principal,
Yadavindra Public School, SAS Nagar, served as the Headmaster of The Lawrence School, Sanawar, from 1995 to 1999.

Reform, don’t regress!Amar ChandelThere has always been a “friendly contest” among the students of Lawrence School, Sanawar; Doon School, Dehra Dun, Mayo College, Ajmer, and a few other public schools as to which one of them is the best of them all.

After trying it up with the staff of the state boards and corporations, specially those marked for disinvestment, with limited success, the Punjab Government on Tuesday approved a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for its general employees. There may not be many takers for the latest VRS unless it is made exceptionally attractive, which is doubtful because the government has limited funds at its disposal. The experience of the bank employees who opted for such schemes in the past has not been very encouraging. With declining interest rates, a general slowdown in the economy and lack of adequate skills and training, many of them found that they were unable to find gainful employment. The biggest challenge for an employee opting for the VRS is how to get going after years in a non-demanding job. Taking help from government agencies is an uphill task unless they are willing to grease the palms of those managing them. If, despite all this, some are tempted by the golden handshake, they are more likely to be the ones the government would in any case have liked to retain on its regular payrolls. In fact, this is one of the main drawbacks of the scheme. The deadwood whom the government wants to get rid of remain in service while the meritorious leave for greener pastures. There is no disputing that the Punjab
Government is terribly overstaffed and, as reports suggest, things have come to such a pass that it has to take overdraft to pay the salaries of its employees.

Now the question is: what will the government do if the scheme flops? While sacking the surplus staff is out of question given the terms and conditions of their appointment, they can certainly be trained to find self-employment. After all, there are many sectors where manpower is required. So it is basically a question of redeployment of human resources. The government's bid to downsize itself would have carried greater conviction if it had shown some measure of sincerity in getting rid of many senior posts which are mere sinecures. A draft paper prepared by the Planning Commission on "improving effectiveness of government programmes" had this to say about the IAS: "After 15 years in service, an average officer spends 50 per cent of his time doing useless work on posts that call for no challenge. Working much below their capability results in stagnation..." However, there does not appear to be any effort to prune the size of those fat cows in the administration. The state can be efficiently managed with a smaller Cabinet and a lesser number of departments. But this requires vision. It is easier to come up with hackneyed schemes like the
VRS.

The Centre’s proposal to set up a national commission for children is welcome as this was long overdue to help protect their legitimate rights. There should be no problem for the Centre to ensure the smooth passage of the legislation in Parliament as all the political parties are one in pleading for improving the conditions of children. Moreover, a commission is of special significance for the country because India is said to have the largest population of children in the world. According to the 2001 census, 40 per cent of the population is below the age of 18 years while 15.37 per cent is in the 0 to six age group. Unfortunately, despite various legal provisions and child welfare programmes at the Centre and in the states, children suffer from neglect and abuse. Concerns have been raised on issues ranging from the use of child labour to sexual abuse. They are also employed in hazardous industries like the Sivakasi fireworks factory in Tamil Nadu or the brick kiln units in almost every state. The girl child is the worst sufferer as she is the target of abuse and discrimination both at home and outside. According to an estimate, 60 per cent of the school dropouts in the country between five and 14 years are girls. This suggests to what extent girls are exploited as child labourers.

Ironically, even though there is a plethora of laws and regulations to protect children from harassment or abuse, the enforcement agencies seem to be insensitive to their problems. It is not uncommon to find even senior bureaucrats employing child labour in their homes. Doubts are bound to be raised on the efficacy of the proposed commission. Nonetheless, one needs to give it a fair trial because of the expectations that it would ensure better implementation of specific laws and policies. Moreover, as India had acceded to the United Nations Convention of Rights of the Child in 1992, this treaty makes it binding on the country to formulate policies and legal mechanisms to safeguard the rights and privileges of children. As children form a vulnerable section of society, they deserve to be valued, nurtured and have their rights protected by responsible adults. Sadly, many children in the country are not immunised against diseases like polio, tetanus or measles. Many fight a silent battle against malnutrition, and nearly half die yearly before their fifth birthday. In addition to governmental efforts, it is the responsibility of every individual to strive for reform and contribute to the general well-being of children.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati seems to believe that a controversy a day keeps her opponents at bay. Like Julius Caesar, she has many enemies even within the ruling coalition who would not mind playing the role of Brutus. But the problem is that she knows that in the kind of politics that she plays, she would be dead if she did not protect her back. She is indeed among the rare leaders who manage to create detractors within their own ruling combine. Ever since she forced the Bharatiya Janata Party to accept her terms for forming a coalition government in May last year, Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party and Mr Rajnath Singh of the BJP have been taking turns in criticising her and her style of functioning. The Samajwadi Party leader is unhappy because his party bagged the maximum number of seats in the hung assembly. And Mr Rajnath Singh is unhappy because Ms Mayawati has perfected the art of targeting him through direct and indirect means. The indirect attack that upset Mr Singh was the detention of a fellow Thakur Raja Bhaiya under POTA. The louder her opponents scream, from within and outside the ruling combine, the more defiant she becomes. Of course, the Opposition would have attacked her even if she had done everything right, but what is a source of amusement for observers of the political theatre of the absurd is the sense of dismay and helplessness in the BJP
ranks. The periodic gestures of assertion of her Dalit identity and agenda have been making the BJP rank and file feel helplessly restless.

The latest pinprick from Ms Mayawati has come in the shape of a booklet marking her government's one year in office on May 3. It says that she inherited a state that was in bad shape. In short, her predecessor, Mr Rajnath Singh, had created a mess and now she would show the people of UP what good governance is all about! There is plenty in the booklet to make the saffron party see red. It carries a picture of B. R. Ambedkar and the slogan: Unki
Disha, Prayas Hamare (Ambedkar's direction and our efforts). But there are no pictures of BJP ideologues Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and Shyama Prasad
Mukherjee. Even Dalit icons from Maharashtra, Chhatrapati Sahuji Maharaj and Jyotirba Rao
Phule, find mention. But political sulking is not going to make Ms Mayawati change her style of functioning. She knows that in the
post-Mandal India every political party wants to own Ambedkar. By projecting herself as the saviour of UP and Ambedkar as the guide of India's Dalit she has placed her opponents in a catch-22 situation. It is not funny that most politicians now want to get
themselves photographed with Babasaheb's picture. Ms Mayawati can get away by ignoring the Sangh Parivar icons. But the BJP cannot protest too loudly over the projection of only Ambedkar, without even a passing reference to Upadhyaya and
Mukherjee, in the controversial booklet.

Musharraf versus his parliamentA mess of the General’s own makingInder Malhotra

Who could have thought that Pakistan's third and present military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, would paint himself into such a tight corner as he has? And that too not because any external threat or pressure but of his own stratagem through which he had given a civilian façade of sorts to his dictatorship. But that is precisely what is happening next door. Typically, this country is not paying enough attention to it partly because of the aftermath of the Iraq war and partly because the focus on Pakistan has shifted to Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee's offer of a hand of friendship to it.

Another crucial reason for indifference to the domestic mess of General Musharraf's own making could be that it cannot and would not affect the stability of the regime he presides over though it is causing him acute embarrassment. More importantly, the developing problem could drive him to remedial measures that would almost certainly open up a Pandora's box in Pakistan at a very awkward time. Let the facts speak for themselves.

At the root of the General's trouble lies the sudden and surprising defiance of him by what he and everyone else had expected to be a docile, if not a puppet, National Assembly. It is not generally known outside Pakistan that the National and Provincial Assemblies of the Musharraf era were elected under the LFO — or the Legal Framework Order — through which he and his legal adviser had introduced no fewer than 29 amendments to the 1973 constitution.

Under this dubious and devious device, the military ruler had given a “finality” to his “election” as President in a referendum that most Pakistanis and almost all foreigners knowledgeable about Pakistan had denounced as “downright fraudulent”. The LFO had also supposedly sanctified his decision to be both President and Chief of the Army Staff. And once a government had been formed under the leadership of his hand-picked Prime Minister, Mr Zafarullah Khan Jamali, General Musharraf had expected smooth sailing. But his calculations have gone awry.

To the shock and dismay of the General and the GHQ, the entire opposition in the National Assembly rejected the inclusion of the LFO and its incorporation in the 1973 constitution. For the LFO to be valid, the opposition says, the General must get it validated by the National Assembly by the requisite two-thirds majority. Of this there is not the slightest chance. For, the Jamali government has only a slender and uncertain majority. Nor is this all.

The combined Opposition is also insisting that in order to be acceptable to it as the country's President, General Mushaharaf must get himself duly elected by the National and Provincial Assemblies as prescribed in the 1973 constitution. It even promises to elect him but only if he first gives up the post of Chief of Army Staff.

Understandably, General Musharraf rejects this demand with contempt. He remembers what had happened to the first military ruler, Field Marshal Ayub Khan, who had agreed to doff his military uniform. His role model is General Zia, who had stuck to the post of Army Chief until his dying day.

From this standoff has emerged an agonizing problem. During the six-month period that it has been in existence, the National Assembly has met four times but has had to be adjourned because the Opposition refuses to allow any proceedings to begin. Instead, it keeps screaming “Go, Musharraf, go”. Nothing of this kind has happened in Pakistan never before at a time when a military ruler, under whatever civilian garb, has been ensconced in both GHQ and Aiwan-e-Sadar, the President's house.

This has led to a seemingly minor but actually major impasse. Under the 1973 constitution it is mandatory that the President must address the inaugural session of the National Assembly every year. Evidently, the legal beavers who helped General Musharraf write the LFO overlooked the enormous potential of this apparently innocuous constitutional provision.

On April 21, General Musharraf gruffly declared that he "would not address an uncivilised parliament in current circumstances”. The Opposition, spearheaded by the fiery alliance of six Islamist parties that calls itself Muttihada Majlis-a-Amal (MMA), says that it wouldn't let him speak until the constitutional issues about his presidency and the validity of the LFO were out of the way. No wonder, the General is angry.

Surely, GHQ must have noted that Prime Minister Jamali, who publicly says that President Musharraf is his “boss”, is treading a different path. He has invited all Opposition parties for talks on the LFO, pretending that there is no crisis. But the Opposition asks sarcastically, “what can (Mr.) Jamali deliver?”

There is no way General Musharraf is going to bow to any of the Opposition's demands. He certainly would not give up the Army Chief's job and thus destroy his real power base. In Pakistan, the army has been and remains the final arbiter of the country's destiny. The other two "A's" that run Pakistan are Allah and America. Nor is the Opposition likely to budge from its present position.

Consequently, the developing situation is moving inexorably towards the dissolution of the National Assembly and the running of the administration as during the three years before the last poll though presidential decree.

This time around, however, General Musharraf wouldn't wait three years to hold elections. He might order them within three months, the timeframe prescribed by the 1973 constitution. And he would almost certainly change his electoral strategy. The last time his principal objective was to keep Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif out of the electoral process completely. For this purpose he had allowed the army and the ISI to lend selective support to candidates belonging to the MMA.

Should fresh elections become unavoidable, as seems very likely, he might try to do deal with Ms Benazir Bhutto or Mr Sharif or both in order to put the MMA in its place. Judging Ms. Bhutto by her record in 1988 when she readily made a Faustian bargain with the inheritors of the legacy of General Zia, her father's executioner, she is quite capable of making any compromise in future. In fact, it is no secret that all she wants is the withdrawal of all court cases against her and the release from prolonged imprisonment of her husband, Mr. Asif Zardari. Mr Sharif is also keen that his extended clan, exiled from Pakistan for 10 years under a Saudi-brokered deal with General Musharraf, should be able to return home.

As if to confirm such speculation, Ms Bhutto has announced at Dubai that a mid-term election in her country is "round the corner" and that she is "determined" to go back to take part in it.

Nobody expects the international community, which basically means the US, to be critical of anything that General Musharraf might do. Washington said nothing about his shabby referendum or flawed elections. Despite its unhappiness with the Musharraf regime's support to whatever remains of the Taliban in Afghanistan, President Bush is likely to invite the General to Washington in June, immediately after Deputy Prime Minister L. K. Advani returns from a long-planned sojourn in the US.

“I opened the door of my room and then stood glued to the ground”, said a colleague the other day. “There on top of the wooden box covering the power meter on the opposite wall lay a big, soft, brown blob of fur. It moved and raised its head and stared gravely at me. It was a cat”.

Now that’s hardly surprising. A cat can choose any place to lie down. And a cat may look at a king. But my colleague continued, adding: “I smiled at it and it smiled back at me. I winked at it and it winked back at me.”

A cat blinks but it does not smile. It grins. Remember the cat in “Alice in Wonderland”? The big cat grinned at Alice. Then slowly only the head remained and the rest of the cat disappeared. Finally the head also vanished. Only the grin remained.

Cheshire cats are believed to grin while Kilkenny cats fight till one destroys the other. Cats and dogs, the traditional enemies, raise hell when they fight. The loud, shrill noises they make while fighting have led to the coining of the idiom “to rain cats and dogs” to indicate heavy rain and the accompanying sound and fury.

The cat has enriched the English language in many ways. Idiomatic expressions and proverbs are only a small part of the “cat literature”.

“Cat” can mean any of the carnivores like the lion, the tiger, the leopard or the jaguar. Perhaps the cat has something of all these animals in it, otherwise why should they all be known to belong to the “cat family” and not to the lion family or to any other.

A cat can be spiteful when it chooses to be. That explains why “cat” also means a woman who indulges in spiteful or malicious gossip. “Cat” also means a lash with nine tails, better known as “Cat-o-nine-tails”.

You must have frequently come across the saying “Which way the wind blows?” But have you also read or heard the expression “which way the cat jumps?” It means to watch how things are going to turn before committing oneself. “Of course, you have heard “Cat-calls”. You might have yourself indulged in them. But what about this rather unusual expression” “to turn the cat in the pan”. It means” to change sides with dexterity". Anyone who becomes a tool in another's hand is called a “cat's paw'. The reference is to the “fable of the monkey who used the paws of the cat to draw the roasting chestnuts out of the fire”. But "Cat's foot", of course, is the name of a plant. " Cat-eyed" means "having eyes like those of the cat, i.e., able to see in the dark". But "cat's eye" means a beautiful variety of quartz.

“Cat-like” does not mean having any physical resemblance with the cat. It simply means "noiselessly, stealthily". and “cat's meat” is not the flesh of the cat but meat for the cat. Of course most of us are familiar with the expressions "to bell the cat" and "to let the cat out of the bag". Like the former, the latter also has a background. At one time pigs were carried to the market in bags for selling. Occasionally a villager would carry a cat in his bag, declaring that it was sucking pig. The idea was to “impose it on a greenhorn”. But, if the intending buyer insisted on opening the bag and "seeing" the animal, the truth would be discovered. Hence the meaning "to divulge a secret".

When a person looks dirty he is said to be looking “like something the cat brought in.” When a person is very nervous, he is like a cat on hot bricks”. “A cat and mouse game” means a cruel game. The reference is to the cruel manner in which the cat plays with the mouse before it actually kills it. “A burglar who enters houses by climbing up walls” is called a “cat burglar”. If a person keeps mum when he ought to be speaking, we often say, "Has the cat got your tongue?" If a place is too small to live or to work in, we might say there is "no room to swing a cat". In Hindi we say "Ghar wale ghar nahin, humein kisi ka dar nahin", in English it is "When the cat is away the mice will play".

The cat's association with witches led to the coining of the saying "A cat has nine lives". A witch, according to a superstition, could take on the body of a cat nine times. But despite her proverbial nine lives "care kills the cat".

A small minded person is called " cat-witted". This would seem rather unjust. Cats can be very intelligent, that is, if they choose to be. Only recently I was awakened in the middle of the night by strange sounds emerging from the living room. I tiptoed to the door. What I saw bowled me over. A cat was standing on is hind legs and using its forepaws vigorously to open the door of the fridge. And lo and behold! The door opened and the cat shifted swiftly, putting itself between the door and the rest of the
fridge. With its back it kept the door ajar. It was about to investigate the contents of a container when it saw me and quit in a jiffy. That incidentally explained how for some nights fat from the milk had been disappearing so mysteriously!

In the last ten years or so, The Lawrence School located in the village of Sanawar, near Kasauli, has changed three Headmasters. The latest to go is Mr Andrew Gray, an import from Britain who managed to survive for only three years. The school founded in 1847 as the Lawrence Asylum for out-of-marriage children and orphans of British-other-ranks has since 1947 been transformed into a typical public school for an upwardly mobile landed and commercial elite. The transformation has been uneasy, for the school appears to be inordinately at odds with itself.

The spiritual nucleus of the school in the 19th century was its beautiful chapel which symbolised the Church of England values of the time. There is a reference to the school in Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, though he (Kim) never went to Sanawar. The padre told him, “We’ll make a man of you at Sanawar, even at the price of making you a protestant”. And there lies another contradiction: they wanted to make “men” of the inmates even though since its inception the institution (call it school) was and, quite rightly, continues to be co-educational.

Until 1947, all the principals were ordained priests of the Church of England. Moreover, in 1920 the Lawrence Asylum became the Lawrence Royal Military School under the Defence Department of the Government of India. After Independence, by 1953, the school supposedly ceased to be a government (military) institution, its ownership being transferred to a newly constituted Lawrence School Society.

The school still wears royal colours.

However, in reality the Board of Governors continued to be dominated by the government, which had five out of seven members on the board. The chairmanship of the board was passed on from the Ministry of Defence to the Ministry of Education. At present the Secretary to the Education Ministry (a bureaucrat) continues to be the ex-officio President while the Lawrence School Society consists almost entirely of old Sanawarians. Virtually no attempt has been made to incorporate eminent people from the field of education and other spheres of life into the Society.

The outgoing Headmaster, Mr Andrew Gray, had many plus points and fresh ideas to bring a breath of fresh air into the school. His weakness was that he proved to be a not very good team-leader. He was not able to take the staff along with him. Moreover, being a foreigner he was, perhaps, not able to communicate adequately with all sections of the staff and the school community. As for old Sanawarians, they like to have an exclusive say in the choice of the Headmaster, and sections of them also try to make life as difficult for the incumbent as possible.

As in the case of the other half a dozen or so elite public schools in the country, Sanawar has been unable to rework its vision and philosophy in accordance with a democratic, secular and resurgent India. The atmosphere continues to be stiff and hierarchical; there is the usual emphasis on competitiveness in academies and games as against a spirit of cooperation and encouraging learning and sport for the thrills and aesthetics that go with them.

Another shortcoming of Sanawar and other public schools is their macho culture and club-like social life. There is always a surfeit of drinking and smoking on the campus. During the Founder’s Day celebrations, old Sanawarians like to carry their hip flasks with them as they wander around the campus. Lately they have also showed a preference for loud MTV style dance nights. There is also too much junk-tuck around the campus. It seems the Sanawarians, like their other public school counterparts, cannot have enough of junky beverages like Coke and Pepsi, and junky food like Uncle Chipps and other so-called fast foods.

The Lawrence School also suffers from a certain mind-boggling anachronism. Believe it or not, but the school’s governors actually behave as if Indian history was bereft of the watershed date of 1947. Every Founder’s Day the school still troops the Royal colours of the British Crown. If by some quirk of fate, Pravin Togadia or Narendra Modi were to be invited to be the chief guest, they would find themselves saluting the current holder of the chambers in Buckingham Palace! It should also be noted that the chief of the Western Command, who represents the Ministry of Defence on the Board of Governors of the school, is also required to honour the Royal British Colours during the Founder’s. Sanawar today finds itself caught in a time-warp. It is not a military school, it is not a government school, it is not a British School. yet structurally it reflects the schizophrenia of all these disjointed elements as if they were still ruling the roost in the183 acres of prime forest and agricultural land the school is housed in.

Indeed, on many life-style matters and also matters relating to educational philosophy, schools like Sanawar should try to inspire themselves with ideas drawn from Gandhi, Tagore and the Krishnamurti Foundation schools like the Rishi Valley School in Andhra Pradesh. The Lawrence School will hardly be able to avoid its assembly-line hike turnover of Headmasters unless it is able to free itself from overdoses of nostalgic elitism and the nuisance-value of its old Sanawarian fraternity. Moreover, the school had better overcome the metaphorical treason it commits by failing to spade away its colonial roots.

The writer, who resides at Kasauli, has watched The Lawrence School, Sanawar, closely over the years.

Mr Harish Dhillon, Principal,
Yadavindra Public School, SAS Nagar, served as the Headmaster of The Lawrence School, Sanawar, from 1995 to 1999. He was succeeded by Mr Soloman, who officiated for about a year before Mr Andrew S. Gray joined the school as Headmaster.

Talking to The Tribune, Mr Dhillon fondly recalled his three decades of association with the school. “I am one of the fortunate persons to have been at the school as a student, a teacher and a Headmaster. For me it is easily the most beautiful place in the world.”

But does he think that the school is losing its sheen and the standards it had established for itself years ago are now falling?

“I don’t think this is true about the Sanawar school. It is more of a fashion these days to say such things about established institutions. The fact that The Lawrence School has existed as one of the top schools of the country in itself proves that the school has moved from strength to strength and evolved with the changing times and needs of society and the world.”

Asked to react to the termination of the services of Mr. Gray as the Headmaster, Mr Dhillon said: “I will not like to comment since it is purely an internal matter and it will not be right on my part to talk about it. Moreover, I really have not kept in touch with the school following its policy that a former Headmaster must not look back so that the new incumbent can function independently.”

Why has the school been in the middle of controversies during the last few years?.

“The school has a strong tradition and as a result of this very little damage can be ever done to the school. Regarding the present crisis, I really have no idea as to what the cause is, but whosoever I met from the school, including children, seems to suggest that the school was doing very well and I am sure that after the present crisis has blown over, everything will get back to normal. The Deputy Headmaster, who is now the officiating Headmaster, is a sensible young man and I am sure that he will do very well in his assignment. He also has the advantage of being assisted by a team of very sincere and hard working staff.

‘Balance tradition with change’

Mr Sumer Bahadur Singh, Headmaster, The Asian School, Dehra Dun, was the Headmaster of The Lawrence School from 1988 to 1995 before handing over charge to Mr Harish Dhillon.

Talking to The Tribune, Mr Sumer Singh said, “I think that most problems arise because the school has not been able to identify its traditions. This is an old school and thus has a tradition. But everything routine cannot be called a tradition. Anything that has happened before does not mean that it has to be or can be done again. Similarly, something which was done in a particular way a hundred years back, may or may not be possible now.

“What is the school’s tradition and what is not has to be worked out by everyone concerned together. The Board of Governors, the school Headmaster and the teachers should sit together and identify the school’s set of traditional value systems and ideals to guide them.”

Refusing to comment on the termination of Mr Gray, Mr Sumer Singh said, “I really do not know what has happened in the school lately. But I read about it in The Tribune. I am sorry I cannot comment on this particular incident as I have not kept in touch with the school at all since I left in 1995.”

Scheduled to join as the Principal of Daly College, Indore, Mr Sumer Singh stated that The Lawrence School has to balance between its traditions and changing times. “Traditions have to be followed in the present day context. One cannot have a system in which no one is sure of what should be and what should not be. There is confusion among many about what is the school’s tradition and what is not. In such a state if you bring a Headmaster from abroad, and he tries to bring in changes he would immediately be in trouble. And every principal makes changes according to what he thinks is the best for the school. And changes are required if one has to keep the school alive, catering to the changing needs of society.”

There has always been a “friendly contest” among the students of Lawrence School, Sanawar; Doon School, Dehra Dun, Mayo College, Ajmer, and a few other public schools as to which one of them is the best of them all. Since each one of them looks only in the personal mirror, the conclusion is that the fairest of them all is, well, their own school.

The recent unsavoury incidents have, however, robbed Sanawar of this smug satisfaction. Imagine a Headmaster (Mr Andrew Gray) being dismissed when he is only half-way through his contract because of behaviour unbecoming of the chair he occupied; staff members forming a union; and a student accusing his schoolmates of trying to perform an unnatural act on him. The venerable school has not received so much of adverse publicity since it came into existence in 1847 as it did in the past three years.

Now that the unthinkable has happened, there are two options before the management. Either it treats the turbulence as a trigger for catharsis and removes all faults that it has unwittingly acquired or be bogged down by the enormity of the crisis.

Life in a residential public school is different from that in other schools. When children are away from their parents for months altogether, they need teachers as surrogate parents. In olden times teachers at Sanawar played this role to perfection. Their dedication and commitment to the school was complete. Unfortunately, some of the newer recruits did not understand the importance of this relationship. In the name of discipline, they tried to enforce a regime which bordered on being sadist.

For instance, the mother of one of the students recounts an incident that took place when her son had just left home for the first time to join the prestigious school. On his birthday she rang up the house master requesting him that this was the first time that the child was away from home on his birthday and he should convey her good wishes to him. The teacher refused point-blank. When she insisted, he not only shouted at her but also later scolded the boy, telling him: “Who does your mother think she is?” Imagine the effect on a young mind.

If the school does a bit of introspection, it will realise that the old students have a lot of say in its administration, with the School Society being packed with old Sanawarians. Nothing wrong with that, except that some of them tend to overlook various shortcomings only because these were prevalent even when they were in school. When the father of one student told an influential old Sanawarian that there was too much of ragging of young students and the Headmaster was not doing much about it, the old Sanawarian only shrugged his shoulders and said ragging was nothing extraordinary. Well, it proved to be traumatic for this particular boy. He forced his parents to pull him out of the school.

One undesirable result of a long existence is that certain aberrations tend to get the strength of “tradition”. One such oddball behaviour is that at times even parents are treated as harshly as the students. Founder’s Day function is the most happening event when almost every parent visits the school. And yet, nobody has ever bothered to even erect pandals and put up a few chairs there so that the parents can have some semblance of comfort. After all, they have to while away a lot of time between the sports events and the cultural programmes. The students can hang around the canteen for hours, not the fifty and sixty year olds.

Incidentally, this should also be one of the very few schools where the students have to wear hand-me-down clothes of previous students. This despite the fact that its fee is among the highest in the country.

Mr Harish Dhillon was highly accessible to the parents as Headmaster. But the pendulum swung the other way during the time of Mr Gray. Some of the teachers appointed by him on their part tended to be equally dismissive to the point of being impolite. Worse, there was no one to listen to the complaints. Naturally, the anger mounted and the school got a lot of adverse publicity through word of mouth.

Many dedicated teachers were in the know of these goings-on. Some quit in disgust. Since there was no redressal mechanism, others were forced to form a union. But the management sided with the Headmaster and the office-bearers were penalised. This silenced the others and the atmosphere of fear affected the functioning of the school.

The worst result of the tension has been that the teachers are divided into groups. The undercurrent of frustration has been telling on the performance of the students as well. With the Headmaster, Mr Andrew S. Gray, out of the way, the first task before the board of governors is to plug the divide. A sullen teacher can only pass his irritation on to his wards.

Had the warning signals been heeded, things could not have come to such a pass that the Headmaster had to go in disgrace. Sanawar today may not be the very best school in India, but it is certainly among the finest. If it is to stay on that perch, it must evolve a mechanism so that suggestions about improvement are not dismissed as inspired criticism.